Students Rachel Brady and Richard Gutierrez awarded IIT Chicago-Kent's first Justice John Paul Stevens Public Interest Summer Fellowships
IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law students Rachel Brady '13 and Richard Gutierrez '12 have been awarded the law school's first Justice John Paul Stevens Public Interest Summer Fellowships. Brady and Gutierrez will each receive $5,000 to support their work in summer public interest law positions.
The John Paul Stevens Fellowship is open to first- and second-year law students who have secured summer legal public interest positions in either not-for-profit organizations or governmental entities. Stevens fellows are selected based on their commitment to public service and their potential for excellence throughout their legal careers.
"The fellowship seeks to promote the public interest and social justice values that have characterized Justice Stevens' work throughout his career," said Chicago-Kent Professor Nancy S. Marder, who clerked for Justice Stevens from 1990 to 1992. "When Justice Stevens retired from the Supreme Court last spring, his law clerks decided to expand the program. Chicago-Kent is one of the first schools that joined the program after the expansion."
Rachel Brady is a first-year student who will spend the summer at the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc. Brady earned a bachelor of arts degree magna cum laude in political science from Macalester College, and a master of arts in teaching from Dominican University. Prior to law school, she worked for Teach for America and spent six months in New Zealand with Help Exchange. At Chicago-Kent, Brady is a member of the Kent Justice Foundation and was a finalist in the 2011 Charles Evans Hughes Moot Court Competition.
Second-year student Richard Gutierrez will spend the summer working in the Appellate Division of the Rhode Island Office of the Public Defender. Gutierrez graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida with a dual degree in English and history. At Chicago-Kent, he is a member of the Kent Justice Foundation, National Lawyers Guild and the Chicago-Kent Law Review. As a member of the Moot Court Honor Society, Gutierrez won the Best Oral Advocate award in the 2011 ABA National Appellate Advocacy Regional Competition. He has completed a judicial externship with the Honorable Marvin Aspen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and has served as a legal intern with the People's Law Office in Chicago.
Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, a private, Ph.D.-granting university with more than 7,700 students in engineering, sciences, architecture, psychology, design, humanities, business and law. With more than 1,100 students, Chicago-Kent offers full-time and part-time J.D. and LL.M. degree programs as well as joint-degree programs with other IIT units.
